Dave Weigel at Slate has a piece up on “Why conservatives are having mixed luck getting video of angry, violent liberals“:
… Every reasonably solid video of a shove or insult made it to Breitbart.tv. They just haven’t broken into the narrative about the protests the way that 2009 videos of rebellion at congressional town halls did, or even Hartsock’s Palm Springs video did. (This week, some congressional Republicans called for an investigation of Common Cause because the group had organized the event where those activists embarrassed themselves on camera.) There hasn’t been any dip in support for unions; there has been a dip in support for Scott Walker.
__
The videographers have not given up. FreedomWorks activists are on the ground in Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, Tennessee, and Utah “this weekend through the next two weeks,” according to the group. They want to supplement the FlipCam videos they’ve already been getting. They want documentary evidence of union anger out there so powerful that the media can’t avoid it. But who doesn’t know that he’s venturing into the view of tiny cameras every time he attends a rally? Who trusts the media? Who wants to wind up as the face of Violence Breaking Out and wrecking his cause? The new age of protests is bringing on more self-consciousness and more détente.
Or, you know, maybe there aren’t as many loose cannons on “our side”, because the union defenders are working from documentable facts, not rumors sourced from an email based on someone’s understanding of whatever Fox News tried astroturfing last night?
Calouste
Do those states mentioned have a “you’re not allowed to film the police at work” law? That could be fun for a change, specially with the police standing by the protestors in Wisconsin.
Yutsano
Had pretty crappy Chinese food for dinner, now listening to the dishwasher run and contemplating if I want to run down to the mailbox or not. Leaning towards not but I could find a second wind here. Making cookies for work later this week. Otherwise got pretty much nuttin’.
BGinCHI
To paraphrase Aristotle from the Posterior Analytics:
Conservative are dicks.
Pooh
Made dinner for folks tonight, hoisin-glazed braised pork shoulder with honeyginger dipping sauce, garlic sauteed mustard greens; snap peas and hawaian sweet bread. Note to self, thai chilis are not kidding around…
Mark S.
Jackbooted IRS thugs making cookies for the office? What is this world coming to?
Yutsano
@Pooh:
Sneaky detail re: chiles: the smaller the chile the hotter it is on the Scovill scale. I think the Thai chiles are something like 500,000 units or so. One unit is one squirt of sugar water to douse the heat.
@Mark S.: Hey thugs gotta eat too. Plus they’re traditional Jewish cookies.
J. Michael Neal
I’m really, really pissed at the NCAA. I wanted to watch a game next weekend.
J. Michael Neal
@Yutsano:
So, they’re anti-Semitic?
TenguPhule
Freedomworks, another name that means nothing of what it actually represents.
The Republicans are being run by Humpty Dumpty.
Mnemosyne
@Mark S.:
I think what he asks first is cake or death?
TenguPhule
They’re proof that if there is a God, he’s a spiteful SOB.
Pooh
@Yutsano
Yeah, probably dialing it back to Serrano peppers next time, sucks to have a whole pot of braising liquid when a few drops are all the heat you could ever need/take…
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: Run to the mailbox? How far away is it?
@Mnemosyne: Eddie Izzard! I don’t even have to click on the link. I lurrrrvs him.
Anne Laurie, or maybe it’s because despite all the talk about both sides doing it, we liberals really are less violent in nature? Could that possibly be? It would be irresponsible not to speculate.
Yutsano
@Pooh: You could also remove the seeds and the membranes if you’re going for a particular flavor profile. Or do what the Thai do and incorporate coconut milk in it somehow. Of course some of them just suck it up, but they start giving them hot peppers in infancy to get them used to the idea of heat.
@asiangrrlMN: NO! We iz all violent union thug DHFs. Didn’t you get the memo?
Jrod the Cookie Thief
That’s part of it, sure.
I’d also like to think that people are starting to see through the old video-of-crazy-depraved-radical-liberals-that-eventually-turns-out-to-be-a-huge-fucking-lie trick. The right-wingers have gone to that well too many times.
As for these specific protests, it also helps that the counter-protest is insignificant. It’s a lot harder to find video of liberals brutally assaulting decent Americans when the real Murkins aren’t showing up to provoke people.
Hell, when you think about it, these are the first real protests this country has seen in ages. The grievance is real. There’s no multi-billion dollar industry that whipped these protesters into a fury over bullshit. There’s a tangible, achievable goal that the protesters seek. Giant puppets and Free Mumia bullshit are nowhere to be found, or at least kept to a minimum.
Not even the Iraq War protests were ever very real. There was no chance of stopping the war by marching, they were rife with complete horseshit, and they were never really sustained. People came out for the big one, marched for a day, shrugged and went home. Maybe this was a comfort to those of us who opposed the war, but besides that it accomplished nothing.
Even things like marches on Washington aren’t too useful. The city gets clogged up for the weekend, some nice speeches are spoke, and then it’s over and things go back to normal.
Wisconsin is different. Things aren’t back to normal at all. Tens of thousands are still at the capitol every day.
I think that the noise machine stopped thinking of protests as a threat a long time ago. Hell, the Iraq protest was the largest worldwide protest in history, and it was still toothless. That’s probably why they felt safe ginning up the tea party protests. It’s a good way to keep the marks riled up and an excuse to make the media talk about how much red-blooded Americans hate that bad ol’ sockalizm.
That was a big fucking mistake on their part. After spending more than a year playing up how great and All-American protesting was, they have no ammo to use against a real protest. They never expected to see one in this country again.
And neither did I. Thank you, Wisconsin! Maybe there’s hope left for this fading republic.
Mark S.
Does Boehner really have, I don’t know, aquamarine silver eyes? He also looks less orange.
Is everyone wearing colored contacts these days? I watched Leonardo Dicaprio the other night in Shutter Island, and in some scenes his eyes were greener than any freaking cat.
TenguPhule
I’d like to believe most people are rational human beings too, unfortunately reality sucks.
The idiots yell the loudest, thus only their voices are heard.
Spaghetti Lee
Sheesh. What was that line from Holy Grail? “I’m being oppressed! Did you see him oppressing me?” There’s nothing wrong with being prepared to take advantage of an opponent’s miscues, but this sitting around waiting for something bad to happen is just a big bag of fail.
Didn’t conservatives used to take pride in their bloodthirsty manliness and talk about how they’re going to mow down whoever gets in their way. Now, a 60-year-old math teacher from Sheboygan steps on Andrew Breitbart’s foot and it instantly reaches memetic status among conservatives desperate to play the victim of us mean ol’ liberals. Personally, I blame the influx of libertarians, the masters of perpetual victimhood.
Elia
Weigel is pretty good but stories like this are examples of how he’s far from perfect.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: Well, YOU are, you ebil gubmint worker you. Me, I’m a delicate flower who used to be a little girl with feelings. Also. Too.
Spaghetti Lee
@Mark S.:
I’ve always wondered about his eyes. The pupils seem unnaturally thin. Makes you wonder if David Icke was right this whole time.
Mark S.
@Spaghetti Lee:
I had to google David Icke. That was a lot of crazy.
asiangrrlMN
@Mark S.: I stopped reading after, “…espousing that reptiles rule the world….”
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
@Yutsano:
Traditionally, any cookie I get close enough to becomes a farbay kikhl. (gone cookie? okay, I’m cribbing my Yiddish from the internet.)
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN:
Such silly nonsense. We all know we are subjects of our merciful and benevolent feline overlords.
@Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel): Ah. You’re a schnorrer. Gotcha.
(Actually I don’t speak a lick of Yiddish either. My Quebecois great-grandfather forbade it in the house.)
Jrod the Cookie Thief
@TenguPhule: The last few edited video gambits were miserable failures. They didn’t do a damn thing to sway public opinion toward a right-wing opinion.
Sure, the 27%ers still eat it up. They’ll cling to any scrap that confirms their favorite myths. Nobody else is falling for it.
Maybe if they took six months off from the edited video game, people would forget again. That doesn’t bode well for the O’Keefe inspired agitators on their way to Madison right now.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: Now this:
this, this is the truth, forever and ever, amen.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: All praise to teh Tunch, blessed be His name.
And someone referenced Al Capone a few threads below. I’d like to point out for the record that Elliott Ness chased him for years but the IRS finally brought him down. You’re welcome.
J. Michael Neal
@Yutsano: Whose feline overlords are benevolent. Mine sure as hell aren’t.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: Yes. When criminals can’t be caught any other way, the Tax Man cometh.
And, Cole, TUUUUUUUUNCH!
Yutsano
@Jrod the Cookie Thief:
You just inadvertently made WoWtards all over this great country cry.
@J. Michael Neal: Mine just attacked my knee. Unprovoked. The knee must have sinned against her in some way.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
Poor Scotty Walker. Even I admit that he’s overshot on this one.
Yes, big business should be able to boss workers around if they want, whether they are in America or one of our tribute nations. I fully support microchipping, chemical castration and welded on manacles if that’s what it takes for me to be able to buy a bespoke Galliano dressing gown and have it air freighted to Spokane for under $15000.
But Scotty is as dumb today as he was in school back in Plainfield – dumb as a banana split with extra chunky nuts and a side serve of mean.
I caught that boy torturing a cat one day. At least, he was trying to torture it, but he’d let one paw escape and it had hooked one claw right through his nose and out one nostril. He’d immediately stood up in shock, and so the cat was hanging full stretch from his nose, yowling like Ayn Rand on a coke bender, while he flapped his arms and batted at it with both hands.
I didn’t see him for years after we moved towns again, until I was at a Slate party in the mid nineties, where poor dumb Scotty was in the corner having a frighteningly similar experience involving Megan McArdle and a drop zirconia earring.
Stupid is as stupid does.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: My Raven has an unhealthy affinity for my jubleys.
Jrod the Cookie Thief
@Yutsano: I’ve always hoped my words could have a positive effect.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason (formerly frosty)
@Jrod the Cookie Thief:
Hmmm.
Interesting dynamic. I’m curious how it plays out. Hope you’re right.
As far as the history of ineffectual protests, most of the stuff after Nixon was president was useless. It felt good to march, but it didn’t do squat. Except get 4 kids killed at Kent State.
J. Michael Neal
@asiangrrlMN: Yeah, but who doesn’t?
Nethead Jay
@asiangrrlMN: Cue lots of male envy of Raven ;-)
EDIT: Damn you J. Michael Neal :)
asiangrrlMN
@J. Michael Neal: True. He is male.
@Nethead Jay: Ha! Beaten to the punch.
Yutsano
@J. Michael Neal: @Nethead Jay: Trollops. :)
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: I love that word. And harlot. And hussy.
Yutsano
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason (formerly frosty): DFHs are easy to ignore and dismiss. Cops and firefighters protesting are a lot harder to ignore. That I think is the difference here: the white folk is mad. And not at who the Galtian overlords want them to be mad at.
Spaghetti Lee
@Yutsano:
Yeah, it’s crossed my mind a few times what the media reaction would be if these protests were happening in, say, Mississippi. (Assuming we’re living in an alternate universe where there were still union rights worth bargaining for in the South.)
Yutsano
@Spaghetti Lee: The funny part being that Wisconsin is overwhelmingly white. And up until this point, pretty much famous for cheese, beer, Badgers, and Packers. Mississippi had a history of unrest and protest, but who would have imagined a nice civil place like Wisconsin? That sort of attitude makes me think this has more legs than normal, if the momentum can be kept up.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Yutsano:
You are on target with your assessment. The nooz has always enjoyed making the DFH contingent look bad. Everybody loves to hate on them because it makes their
reportingstories easier and gives better ratings than their standard fare. It’s pretty hard to get the hate going on the cops, firefighters and teachers because those people are everywhere and are comprised of people who pretty much define ‘middle class American’. Just about everyone is related to one of them, many have been helped by them when they needed it most, and most people pretty much agree that they earn what they are paid and they are a good investment for our country.I really hope that this ‘calculation’ of the right turns into a major miscalculation for them. They have gotten away with so much shit that I have been worried that they were going to pull this off too. Walker really wrapped up a lot of crazy in his bill and the more people hear about it the more they don’t like it. Democratic lawmakers and party members really need to step up and be heard on this issue. Now is the time for them to get their shit together and hit the ground to pound it home to the public that the Republicans are out to wreck the government and the economy in their rush to give everything away to their rich benefactors.
Money has pretty much bought up the M$M and turned it to shit. It’s heartening to see that most Americans are not buying their shit. I hate to say it but I hope Walker and the Democrats both hold out as long as they can because IMO the longer this drags out the better it is for Democrats. This is getting peoples attention like nothing else has in many years. These are “real people” raising hell about this, not the stupid teabagging fuckwits that aped for the M$M while cutting their own throats.
And real people are starting to pay attention to this. It’s hitting home that this bullshit the Republicans are proposing just might affect their own home and locality. That will get the attention of any sane person and those are exactly the kind of people we need right now to counter this bullshit from the bought-off Republicans. My only worry is the near impeccable history of the Democrats snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
That’s why I still worry about this.
OT: Finishing up my new comp system and plugged in my old drives to unload them. After doing so I reformatted them and found one that decided to die right then and there. Format locked up so I restarted the system and noticed that the drive manager had marked it bad and took it offline. I tried to revive it but it was dead. I am just happy that I got everything off of it as the drive was packed (160 Gb) with unedited video footage that I would have hated to have to recapture (from VHS, home movies). Talk about timing! Now it’s secure on a mirrored and striped RAID and an extra copy stored on my main server here.
I got eight years out of that drive (1st gen SATA) and it’s ‘sibling’ died last August so I knew it was getting a bit long in tooth. Didn’t lose anything off of that other one either…lol!
I’ll take good luck over bad luck any day. :)
Ailuridae
@Yutsano:
I think we are all underselling how much teachers, and to a lesser extent nurses, also factor into the equation in terms of sympathy. This is all anecdotal but from my FB news feed there are a lot of people who shade pretty far right who are furious about the scapegoating of teachers, especially the notion that their jobs are easy or that they don’t work hard or many hours.
But yeah the whiteness of the crowds is playing in the favor of labor sympathy. Wisconsin is white and Madison for a college town of some size is amazingly white. It seems noticeably whiter than Columbia MO for instance.
My favorite part of the Wisconsin protests is that the mainstream media desperately wants this to go away. Listening to Morning Joe the other day on commercial from Mike and Mike and the derision that those people held the protesters in was palpable. And, yes, during the Tea Party Protesting of health Care Joe and Mika etc couldn’t have been more supportive of those folks interrupting town halls etc.
Ailuridae
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
Small world. I am building an X4 box for a friend and waiting on the HD to arrive tomorrow. The machine is going to be screaming fast and is going to come in around $300 (no monitor, XP already purchased) supporting two screens.
And to the meat of your post:
And real people are starting to pay attention to this. It’s hitting home that this bullshit the Republicans are proposing just might affect their own home and locality. That will get the attention of any sane person and those are exactly the kind of people we need right now to counter this bullshit from the bought-off Republicans. My only worry is the near impeccable history of the Democrats snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
How self -destructive is it for the Republicans to go after labor like this. The were getting 40-45% of the labor vote in recent years. From everything I have read they are a dead party nationally if they start losing labor anywhere near 2:1. Isn’t that a highly likely event now? They really have no long game.
Yutsano
@Odie Hugh Manatee: @Ailuridae: One of my biggest terrors happening now is that some inflated ego decides to make this about him/her (English needs a genderless pronoun but I digress) and then the right has a convenient demon to assail. I got worried that Moore was going to step into that but apparently he spoke then left, which really was the right call. This for now has to stay about people not personalities. The fact that it has remained so into its fourth week is a very good sign. And if it gets exported…the Second Gilded Era might just come to an end. Of course the first ended because a lot of the Galtian overlords lost their shirts too. Although that’s not happening this time around maybe, just maybe, the lack of progress over the last thirty years will finally start reversing.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Ailuridae:
Small, inexpensive and fast is good! I was going for cheap too but decided to splurge on the processor since a bud bought an i7-980x and had a couple of expensive things pop up so I got it for about two-thirds the cost. The mobo is a deal I got on a new Asrock Extreme6 X58 ($175), three gigs of new OCZ Platinum triple channel RAM for $25.00 (running XP Pro on it for now as it’s purpose is for video editing and gaming and my RT.X100 card is not supported in Win7), four new Hitachi 750 Gb/32Mb cache 7,200 RPM drives for $160, a new Thermaltake 850W power supply that I got for $69 and a cheap ($66) ATI HD4870 1Gb graphics card.
The proc was $600, more than I spent on the rest of the stuff…lol! But it rocks and that’s all that matters. :)
To the meat of your post:
That’s what I find so odd about this attack. Everyone has known that while unions have generally supported Democrats, they are comprised of both Democrats and Republicans who have been more or less happy to coexist and disagree with each other while doing so. This has been why ‘cracking’ the unions has been so difficult for the right. Walker isn’t ‘with the program’ and seems to be running his own game on the matter.
Nobody needs to throw Walker an anvil because he’s more than happy to grab one and jump out of the window without any help.
@Yutsano:
Yeah, I saw Jessie Jackson on the Mr. Ed Show and my first thought was ‘oh shit…’ but luckily he didn’t make it about him and the rest of the M$M seems to have ignored his presence. The right is looking for their ‘poster child for the left’ image and they aren’t finding it.
Let’s hope it stays that way. At least we don’t have the over-reachers on our side. The fact that they are on the other side is a good thing right now. So let’s also hope that the over-reachers like Breitbart and his ilk over-reach in some grand way that makes the news in a big way.
cokane
good analysis. plus unions have organized protests for centuries, a certain amount of knowledge has passed down.
cokane
btw if no one has ever seen it before watch Salt of the Earth
one of the most educational videos on the actual trials and difficulties of collective bargaining and striking
http://retrovision.tv/freevideo/salt-of-the-earth-1954
A little slow by modern standards of course
pkdz
@Yutsano: Exactly. Here in Madison, we have the Dane County Sheriff telling Walker that he is no longer having his deputies guard the palace. You have demonstrators that are teachers, firefighters, cops, social workers, professors, librarians, etc.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
So things WOULD get nasty but the naturally violent nurses and teachers &c. are afraid someone will film them being nasty.
Is Weigel always this much of an ass?
And of course it won’t stop the fRightened Keyboardist from making shit up and pissing their pants over less than 100% friendly looks and half-heard threatening mutters.
Uloborus
@Ailuridae:
We all know that the economy is the big issue. Perhaps by attacking the unions loudly and publicly the GOP have finally pushed over the line to where people can see what’s been obvious to the politically inclined for awhile? That is, that while the average person is scraping and afraid about whether they can get by, the GOP is actively attacking the jobs they still have?
agrippa
@Yutsano:
Yutsano, your 47.
Corect on all points. I do think that personalities have to keep clear; this is about people.
And, I think that the second gilded age has ended;and, I think that we are living through a turbulent and risky period.
At this time, we do not want to be the prisoner of our passiions. Let the other guys do that.
suzanne
Speaking of our feline overlords, the kitten went into heat last night. It’s almost as if I had asked the FSM to make her even more annoying.
Nutella
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
No. I’d say Walker is with the R program — they’re all doing similar things. Ohio, Indiana, everywhere that has a Repub majority.
SweetNostrils, fka Scuffletuffle
@Pooh: I can haz as Thursday night menu, plz?? Sounds fantastic!
SweetNostrils, fka Scuffletuffle
@efgoldman: Mais oui, bien sure!
Xenocrates
It’s very simple. Breitbart and his goons decide on an ideological position, then scurry to find evidence which supports their positions. In the lack of real evidence, they just make shit up. That is all….
Shoemaker-Levy 9
The way I’d put it is, the issue for the Madison protesters is comprehensible and coherent, even if you don’t agree with it. With the health care protesters, Jesus, I still don’t know what they were pissed about and I’ve had a couple of years to think about it. The critique of health care from the right was simply incoherent. I would say that people who are incoherently angry make for better video than people who are coherently angry.